I don't know, but I'm getting increasingly concerned about the unintended consequence of all this.

We experienced players are challenging the newbies to games, and usually beating them, often handily. As somebody else noted, some of the Cadets are deciding that high-ranking players should be avoided -- especially in even scenarios. This evening, three cadets left potential games when they saw me there (and I know I showered earlier this year).

The promotions and awarded medals should be considered "the frosting on the cake" (IMO). Yet it seems many players are more concerned with gaining those than playing the game. Has this caused Memoir '44 to be overshadowed a bit here?

For myself, I do not care for the medals -- I have stopped displaying mine -- too many are based on luck to please me.

My current rank and any future promotions I "earn" from here on out will be an unintentional by-product of just playing Online - as they always have been. I prefer to use that platform to find and play opponents of what I consider to be a great game. Not that I had the inclination or time to try and figure out what I had to try and do to reach this or that rank anyway.

I do not wish to run anyone down for trying to gain these but it seems a great deal of players out there are almost "pulling their hair out" to this and reach for that brass ring.

Hauptmann TankCommander, I respect and admire your views. You play for the enjoyment of the game and that is excellent.

Other players are more goal oriented. Some want high points ranking, some promotion to a higher officer rank, some want awards.

The beauty of M44 online is that it supports all these goals while enabling us to find opponents that we would never play in real life. (In real life I would never play over 2500 face to face games in 16 months.)

I invited many cadets for those battles with a high difference in winning percentage then chose to play the weaker side. I explained this to them and when communication was returned they seemed very grateful for it. Also passed on some hints.

I have over 250 wins (over 300 actually). But only 120 or so of those are as a Lt Col.

Do the 250 wins have to be as a Lt Col, or just in total since starting?

Have played loads of cadets, so a bit stuck now as to what to do next?

Any ideas?

I would hazard a guess and say that "loads of cadets" might be your best change. When I was working for this promotion it sometimes seemed hard to find cadets to play against. There were times I had the feeling I had played "loads of cadets" already but because I was counting I knew it was not yet 25 different cadets. Retracing your steps is very tedious (looking back at service records to see which rank a person had when playing against you.)

So my advice would be: start with the number of cadets you are absolutely sure you have played against. (Might be 0 ) And then work up to 25, if you are not promoted by then we will have to figure out what is missing.

(When you say you have completed all scenarios as Lt Col you mean won? Maybe check your own service record to see if you have missed any victories in the run for Colonel. Some other players have found out after scrutiny that they thought they had won a scenario when in fact they did not.)

If all the above fails, let us know so we can speculate what is missing in your case.

You need 250 games as a Lt Colonel, and a win on every "official" map (except latest ones : forget at least Utah, Carentan and Gold ; especially Utah) with both sides.
Besides that, you need to play several cadets (20-25 ?), some of them being promoted afterwards (i.e. I guess it's to avoid seing people creating lots of false accounts just to play cadets !).

Thanks for the welcome, it's great honor that someone acknowledges my,and all other fellow colonels, great efforts to get finally up here,to this key promotion as i believe!

Here's my story so far...

This was the ultimate baptism of fire that finally made a hero out of me.

I had all my easy battles won,at least 2 cadets promoted against me,but as long as i played the hard ones i realized that i had made a nice work with many wins one after another, and they where against all ranks,not only cadets!That gave me some confident and now i feel ready to fight at expert front!

After that the rest was a matter of time,i climb up to my 250 wins and......nothing

I made a check of my wins all over the world and i found how a dot can do so much damage!

I had never won Sainte-mere-Eglise lol

Ok that's easy i thought but two times in a row my opponent left, leaving me to loose from AI,and aboard the game 1 turn before that happens

Finally the battle was set, paratroops were landed and the rest is history!

At the end of this journey i have understand that colonels have prevail where others don't, and they don't care how hard the challenge is as long as it's there to try!

So let's give each other hell out there officers
See you all at field or forum!

Congratulations Colonel - I'm sure your journey was an arduos one - any insights you care to share? Skill ranking of 1822 - very impressive! And you were promoted after a loss at Twin Villages. How so?

Please... take a seat by the fire and let me offer you a drink - or three.

Sorry, sorry, didn't go AWOL. Seems a certain Brigadier - who shall remain nameless - came back for a rant and took over for a while.

Quack!

Of course, the idea of a duck greeeting new Colonels does seem a bit ridiculous. We ducks are flighty creatures (pun intended) after all. But we're far better company than that infernal parrot that Brigadier JRyan insists on taking with him everywhere.

Quack...quack quack quack.

Congrats to the newly minted "Full Bird" Colonels and welcome to the club. We have a special all this week - one of your war stories for two of ours!

Since I started dreaming of a promotion, I fought 247 regular battles and 3 expert battles. Of these, I won 157 regular and one expert battle. If my count is correct, 32 of my opponents were cadets, of which 11 managed to beat me and five were promoted for such an act. It's hard to see the insignias at night, so it might be that there were a few more cadets and possibly even a few more defeats than I counted.

I fought soldiers of all ranks and origins, altogether a 130 different opponents. Keeping no favorites, I fought no-one for more than four times, giving all players match and rematch as sanctioned by the Geneva convention, albeit some were satisfied with just match.

During this Long March, I was transferred around the world and won at least 10 victories in each theater on each side. I revisited all battlefields until I could beat the odds on each side, even those battlefields some consider not to be required. They should be required, if you ask me!

The battlefield I visited the most was Flanking Maneuver at Bir Hakeim, a total of 16 times, with 7 axis and just one allied victory.